


Grief of the Outlier or: Calliope is Fine

by Bstudios



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bstudios/pseuds/Bstudios
Summary: Calliope sits on the roof at night, and thinks of pleasant things.
Kudos: 13





	Grief of the Outlier or: Calliope is Fine

===> Calliope: Go To Sleep

It’s late at night. 

You can tell that. When you were young and able to sleep, you’d only know by the way your eyes sagged. And the ways you slung forward, and how your drawings become messy and scribbly. 

But now, you can see how the moon rolls over the sky. It’s a beautiful night, you think to yourself. 

The kind of night that’d be a good night to sleep. To be near the ones who love you. Who don’t merely tolerate you, but care for you. 

Although you’ll be the first to admit that even you contend with that idea. 

The fact that people don’t just tolerate you. 

Because it sure feels like it sometimes. 

Maybe that’s why you can’t sleep. 

Maybe that’s why you can never sleep in any sort of uniform schedule. 

And it makes you wonder if this was always the case- With your brother. When you were still sharing. You don’t remember ever having issues with sleeping. When you were tired- You were tired. 

You went to bed. 

And you slept. 

And now, you’re as tired as you can be. It feels as if there are weights on your eyelids, sagging down the tight skin near them into dark bags, trying to pull your eyelids down into your skin. 

But you can’t sleep. Maybe if he were still here, he could help you. There had to be some correlation. 

But it’s been told to you so many times, over and over- that you shouldn’t miss you. There were some concerns that maybe you had something called Stockholm, whatever that is. 

What was described to you- You aren’t sure it really fits. You never liked him. You didn’t. In fact- You hated him as much as you could. 

A few of the trolls said that it might be a kismesitude- But it isn’t that. It could never be that. You never felt for him that way. 

He didn’t think of you like that either. 

You would know- You were in his head just as much as he was in yours. 

There’s a moment where you adjust your legs on the roof, the window of your bedroom opened behind you, the bed inside calling. It feels like it’s calling, anyway. 

For you to go inside. 

You’d love nothing more than to hop in. And just forget all of your feelings. To snuggle in those warm blankets. 

But you know that even if you closed your eyes as tightly as you could, you’d still be thinking. 

And if you wrapped yourself up as tightly as possible- You’d still feel cold. Even in this puffy yellow dress, you still feel frigid, and not just because you’re outside in the middle of the night. 

After a glance at your bed, you can only sigh and turn back around. Your legs are frozen to the spot. Glued. 

You can’t even move them, no matter how much you try. And with that, you look off the roof, and for a moment, you consider what it’d be like to jump off. 

But the thought is gone as soon as you think it, there’s not even enough time to consider it. Instead, you turn your need for consideration towards your hand, and it meets your eyes with a glow born from the light of the crescent moon. 

The ring. 

Your hand rises up and touches it. 

And for another moment, this one longer, you consider what would happen if you pull it off. 

Would you vanish again? 

What if you did? 

What would you do? 

Well, you know what you’d do. 

You’d leave behind your body, and you’d travel. 

You’d go as far as Paradox Space goes, as far as you can go, before your soul melts into a particle of dust. And when you’ve finally gone far enough, you’ll see him again. 

And he’ll be like you. 

A particle of dust. Worn and empty. Incomplete. 

His body lacking what he cheated it out of. 

And when you two finally meet, you’ll sit down with him, and he’ll turn away from you. He won’t admit that he misses you, and neither will you. You’ll fold your arms and glare, and you’ll turn away as if the both of you haven’t traveled eons just to see each other again. 

There won’t be a word exchanged, and when there is, he’ll mention his artwork. And you’ll turn to him, and your brow will cock upwards. He’ll go on about how great it is, and he’ll show you his pride and joy- His human self insert. 

And then he’ll ramble about it, about all the care he put into it. Into a rant riddled with antiqued words and vulgar sayings. And you’ll turn around, and you’ll look at his scribbles, and then stick out your tongue. 

It looks gaudy and flashy. Bright and ugly. The proportions are wrong. The coat is hideous. His eyes are too big. His nose is too small. 

But even then, you’ll study it. And then, against instinct, you’ll smile, and you’ll say you drew Callie again. And if his eyes weren’t black voids, he’d roll them around, and mumble about how you always draw her. And yet he’d perk up a little, and demand you show it. So he can make fun of it. 

And that’s when you’d grab his hand, and his hand around yours, and you’d travel the cosmos again. 

And in a million years, you’d return to Earth, where nothing’s changed. 

The day is bright. The sun is shining. You go back to your little spot on the roof, with two rings upon it. One would go on your hand. And the other: his. 

And you’d walk through the window, where your bed has stopped calling, and through the stairs. Down to the living room where you’d draw, and you’d show him your pictures. 

That’s when his tongue goes out, his eyes shrinking as he gags. But he wouldn’t attack it. He’d look at it, with a more artistically nurtured eye, and he’d comment on everything awful about it. 

But with how he looks, you know he’d think the opposite. 

He’d be sad. Jealous of you. But he’d never show it. 

And that’s when you hand him a pencil, and sit down with him, with two pieces of paper on the table. 

Your little fangs would pop out as you draw with him, and he looks over at your paper, trying to copy the lines, his pencil digging into the paper and ripping it up, his claws crumbling it, clumsily handling it as he picks it up, and rants about how much his tablet is superior. 

About how awful paper is. 

But then he’ll shut up when you say how good it looks, even despite that, and he’ll just sit down and fume to himself, doodling more, needing new paper every minute. And when you two are finally done, you’d turn to him, and you’d ask if he wanted to cosplay. Then when he looks at you, his cheeks are swirled, and so are yours. 

But that’s not the case. 

You’re the one with spirals on your cheeks. He had them filled. You’re a sad little girl on the roof of a castle you shouldn’t even live in. That you feel guilty for living in. That’s all that you feel right now. Guilt. Endless guilt. Because you miss him. And you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t miss him. You don’t want to. But you do. 

And your bed is behind you, calling slowly, but you ignore it- It feels like an insult to even get into a bed. 

It’s as if you don’t deserve a bed. 

You deserve to be on the ground. 

Or maybe on a table, so everyone can scream at you how wrong it is to miss him. They can throw rocks at you, and break your bones, and shock you a thousand times to heal your head. 

But you’re not on any of those- You’re a sad little girl. Sitting on a roof. And the moon is starting to set. The sun is beginning to rise. And you feel just as tired. Like you’ve been awake for weeks and weeks. But you still can’t sleep. And your hand is still curled around your stupid ring. 

For a moment, you wish you never had it. 

And you wonder what would happen if you pulled it off. But you’ll never pull it off- You’re a coward. A coward that misses someone horrible. That feels incomplete, and always will. Someone that was useful in only being able to draw. Who wants the bad guy back? 

And then your vision is blurry, and your hand removes itself. But you wish it didn’t just remove itself. 

You’d wish it’d taken the ring with it. 

That it’d of torn off that stupid thing and thrown it off the roof. And then when it falls, you’d fall with it, toppling down and smashing onto the ground, where you’d never exist again. You could traverse the cosmos. You could search for purpose. And you could finally be complete. 

But none of that is going to happen. 

None of it. 

What happens is that you stand up, and your feet push into the yellow slippers, complimenting your Prospitian Robe, and enwrap you in a cushion to help your feet. 

And when you feel your toes mesh on the soft plush inside, you want to throw them off, and force your foot to burn in a thousand coals. Because you don’t deserve these slippers. 

You walk inside, closing the window behind you, with your ringed hand against your chest. And for a moment, a long moment, you wonder what would happen if you just ripped it off, with your finger, and threw it on the ground. Lime stains the floor, and your cheeks match the color. 

Then you’d step on it. And scream at it. When you’ve torn it off, you’d scream at the rest of the room. 

About how unfair this all is. 

About why one of you had to be ‘evil.’ 

About what kind of entity would allow anyone to live through something so painful. 

To force you to kill your other half. 

To force you to share a body. 

And to give you the power you’d never wanted. 

And when any of those strict guidelines are altered? 

It’d leave you small and stupid, forced to watch your friends mature as you remain a helpless young girl that can’t even fix her situation. 

And when nothing responds to your screams, and nobody looks into your space, you’d attack your room, and destroy everything inside of it. 

You’d tear off the curtains. 

You’d rip up the bed. 

You’d ruin your stupid clothes and rip into your back. 

And then you could finally grow your wings. 

You’d force them out, with feathers stained with lime blood, feeling it drain and leak upon your back. You’d cheat your nature, just like he did, and you’d make them flap and wiggle. 

Grabbing them and forcing them to move despite their protests. 

You’d scream and cry with every pulled muscle and torn vein. 

But you’d smile. 

You know you would. 

That’s what you’d want to do. 

But instead you crawl into bed, and you can feel the warmth of the rising sun upon your back. But it isn’t a welcoming force. It feels like a taunt. To the cowardly girl that couldn’t even take off a ring. 

Before you fall into a dreamless rest, you wonder what it’d be like to have wings. 

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my friend Sketchoodles, as her images were what inspired the majority of this story.


End file.
